


Like Father Like Son

by sprucewoodcottage (ironmermaidens)



Series: Les Enfants Terribles [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hermitcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Breaking cycles of abuse, Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Harry Potter, Gen, Gryffindor Evil Xisuma, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Bullying, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Parseltongue, Unethical Magic, cloning, implied/referenced institutionalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23633518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmermaidens/pseuds/sprucewoodcottage
Summary: Some of Hogwarts's new students are struggling to adapt. One student in particular catches the attention of Professor Potter.Evan "Evie" Xisuma is a direct descendent of the darkest wizard in history, and many believe the boy will follow right in Voldemort's footsteps. Harry isn't so sure, and he's determined to get to the bottom of his behavioral issues.
Series: Les Enfants Terribles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701346
Comments: 20
Kudos: 80





	Like Father Like Son

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is perhaps the most self indulgent thing I've ever written in my life.

Maybe it's curiosity that draws him to Hagrid's hut that evening. Maybe a sense of duty to his family, his students, to the entire wizarding world. Maybe it's just impulsiveness. Hermione would probably tell him that's all it was. Brash, impulsive decisions. He was particularly well known for them, after all.

Whatever the reason, Harry finds himself standing outside the door in the orange glow of the setting sun, steeling his nerves for whatever it is he'll find on the other side. He reaches for the knob, then pauses, considers knocking to announce his presence like he hasn't done in over a decade. He's not sure if that would make things better or worse. Harry takes a deep breath and closes the distance between his hand and the knob, twists it and pushes the door open, shoulders squared with a confidence he might have felt under normal circumstances. If this were a normal tea date with Hagrid.

"Harry!" Hagrid says as he enters the hut, his voice strained by unmasked anxiety. Across the table from Hagrid, the small figure of first year Evan "Evie" Xisuma tenses. He's holding a cup above his lap, and even from a distance Harry can see the tea inside it dancing to the beat of his shaking hands. Evie turns to throw a nervous glance over his shoulder at Harry, red eyes meeting green. As soon as they do, Evie whips back around, shoulders rising further around his neck until Harry's sure he'll be swallowed up by his robes. Harry opens his mouth to return Hagrid's greeting, but before he can there's a clatter of ceramic against wood, and the next thing he knows Evie's chair is scrapping across the floor, then the boy is gone, a flash of white hair behind Hagrid's large frame the only thing betraying his new location. "Wha' brings yeh 'round this time o' night?"

"Just thought I'd drop by and see how you're doing. Didn't realize you'd have company." Harry says, as if the company wasn't precisely the reason he'd decided to drop by in the first place. "You don't mind...?"

"No, no, o' course not!" Hagrid says, the same anxiety as before still choking his words. Harry doesn't miss the way Hagrid's eyes dart to the side, subtly checking on his other guest. "Make yerself at home."

Harry smiles and crosses the room to the table, hesitating for only a moment before sitting in Evie's recently vacated chair. "It's been awhile since I've made it around for tea, Hagrid. How have you been?"

It's menial small talk, easy enough to go through the motions, though Harry feels guilty to be splitting his attention between visiting with a friend and keeping an eye on one of Hogwarts's most troubled students. It doesn't take long for Harry to begin catching a quiet, guttural hissing beneath the sounds of the crackling fire across the room, weaving its way between Hagrid and Harry's conversation. It takes Harry a minute to translate the sounds, the gift of parseltongue little more than a fading memory to him these days. When he's had a moment to think, he's sure the words Evie's whispering to himself are, _Go away. Go away. I want him to go away._

"Evie," Harry says, interrupting both Hagrid and the first year muttering behind him. "Can you come out here for a minute?"

Hagrid flashes him that nervous smile again, but Harry ignores it, focusing instead on wavering shadow on the floor near his feet. There's a beat of silence before the shadow moves and Evie's face peers out from around Hagrid's side. Harry gives the boy an encouraging look, and he hesitantly steps fully into view. 

It's the first time Harry's gotten a good look at Evie Xisuma since the start of classes in September. Of course he knew about the boy's shock of white hair and his crimson red eyes, but up close Harry notes that his pale face is covered in enough freckles to put the Weasley family to shame, and if not for his unusual hair and eyes and his freckled complexion, he'd be as identical to Axton and Virgil Xisuma as Axton and Virgil are to each other. 

They look just like young Tom Riddle. Harry knows he's not the only one that thinks it. He tries not to let it affect they way he treats them. Sometimes he wonders if he's the only one that does try.

"Who were you talking to just then, Evie?" Harry asks.

"Talkin' to?" Hagrid says with a nervous laugh. "He weren' talkin' to no one, Harry, yeh must be hearin' things."

Evie's gaze falls to the floor, and he quietly says, "No one..."

Harry's not surprised at his reluctance. He's certainly less attuned to the rumor mill now than when he was a student, but even teachers hear a thing or two in passing. The student body hasn't given Evie a very good impression of what Harry thinks of the boy. 

Instead of pressing Evie further, Harry clears his throat, reaches deep into his memories and does his best to hiss out, _I speak snake too._

Evie jerks his head up, eyes wide with shock, and it seems for just a moment he's forgotten who he's talking to as he shouts, "You—You talk to snakes too?!"

He hasn't had the pleasure of hearing Evie at his most relaxed. Neville had relayed plenty of stories of how loud the boy could be when he was particularly excited about something and at ease enough to express it, but his volume was not something he'd graced anyone with since coming to Hogwarts—besides the few students who had learned the hard way that even Evie has limits, and to push him beyond them meant a trip to the hospital wing.

Harry smiles and nods. "I do."

"But—But you're...!" Evie says, looking as if his entire worldview was crumbling around him. 

"The Boy Who Lived?" Harry suggests wryly. Apparently the joking tone was lost somewhere in the air between Harry's mouth and Evie's ears, because he shrinks in on himself again, his gaze dropping back to the floor, and the candid loudness from moments before evaporating away.

"Yes..." Evie squeaks out. 

"There's a lot they don't write about me in the history books, Evie," Harry says. It hadn't bothered him so much when he was younger, when the war was just ending and his concerns seemed to begin and end with the trembling of his hands and the nightmares plaguing his sleep. Now, though, the only thing he thinks those incomplete biographies of him are good for is a laugh. A sort of sad, pitiful laugh, anyway. 

With Evie Xisuma standing before him, shoulders sagging in a way no eleven-year-old's should, Harry wishes at least one of those books had included a bit about all the summers he spent conversing with the snakes in the garden, even after he'd learned where the gift of parseltongue had come from. 

Evie seems to contemplate this for a moment, wrings his hands together thoughtfully, his face going through an entire spectrum of emotions before he finally lets out another soft hiss of his own, too quiet for Harry to catch what he says. In the next instant, though, he sees Evie's robes shifting, and a small, red snout poking up over the collar. 

Its a corn snake, if he remembers his species correctly. The corn snake flicks its tongue, and the tiniest smile forms on Evie's face as he says, "Her name's Poppy."

"That's a lovely name," Harry says.

"Ax helped me pick it," Evie says. "He likes flowers. Nevi—I, I mean, Professor Longbottom taught him lots about them."

"Was that at St. Mungo's?" Harry asks. Evie nods. He's not surprised by that. The Ministry did everything in its power to keep those boys locked away in St. Mungo's. It'd taken quite a bit of protest from himself and Neville to get them to even consider letting the boys roam the hospital, let alone come to Hogwarts. He's sure if Hermione had been Minister at the time things wouldn't have been such a fight. 

"I'm sure he teaches you a lot more now," Harry says, and this time Evie shrugs. Neville had suggested once that the boys were disheartened to have to share him with the rest of the students now that they were at Hogwarts, and it seemed his instincts were right. Evie apparently felt that way, and if Axton was as close to Neville as Evie implied, then surely he did too. Virgil was much harder to read, as he was a better actor than Evie, but Harry had no doubt he was struggling to adapt just as much as the other two were.

"What about your other classes? Are you enjoying them?"

Evie responds with another shrug. "They're okay..."

Harry tilts his head ever so slightly. "...What do you like to learn about, Evie?"

Evie doesn't respond right away, his hands wringing together again as he considers his answer. His eyes glance up towards Hagrid, who's smiling warmly at the boy behind his beard.

"I like... animals..." Evie says. As if to emphasize his point, Poppy brushes her head under Evie's chin, a smile splitting his face as she does. 

"Now tha's an understatemen'," Hagrid says, and Evie's cheeks turn pink at his words. "Caught 'im out in the field with ol' Buckbeak a month er so back. Abou' fainted when I saw him out there, I did."

"He bowed back!" Evie protests, his face almost as red as Poppy's scales now.

Harry chuckles, and Evie seems to remember his presence with them. In an instant his candid emotions are bottled right back up, his posture as stiff and rigid as when Harry had first asked him to come out of hiding.

Poppy flicks her tongue again and hisses softly. It sounds like _peace_ . Or maybe she's saying _calm_ . A gentle plea with Evie, who responds by hugging his torso, embracing the little snake in his robes. He lets a hiss of his own out, broken by a hitch in his breath, but still the words are recognizable to Harry's ears. _I can't._

"You must be looking forward to your third year, then," Harry says, pretending he hadn't noticed the exchange. "By then I'm sure you'll know enough to put even Hagrid to shame."

Evie shrugs again, to which Hagrid laughs and slaps his back good-naturedly, something that nearly knocks Evie off his feet coming from the half-giant. Hagrid's hand comes to rest on the boy's thin shoulder, keeping him upright, but not soon enough to prevent his face from morphing into a look of frazzlement. 

"He wasn' being this modest abou' it last time I asked," Hagrid says. Evie ducks his head in embarrassment. Harry is all too aware of why he's being modest now when he wasn't before. 

"You'll do great," Harry assures, earning a quick glance up from Evie and a slight quirk of the lips into a smile. His shoulders relax a fraction. Poppy hisses encouragement, and he relaxes even further. "It's getting late. We should probably get you back to your dorm, Evie."

Evie nods, his face falling back into discomfort, perhaps with the realization that he will be alone with Harry as they walk back to the castle. They say their goodbyes to Hagrid, Evie's own more subdued than Harry thinks might be usual, then together they leave, Evie's steps lagging just a bit behind Harry's own. It's quiet between the two of them. Evie's softly hissed conversation with Poppy is nearly drowned out under the sounds of nighttime. The only word Harry recognizes even through the crickets and frogs and owls is _kill_. It's one word he's had etched permanently into his mind, and it sends a shiver of dread down his spine. He steels his nerves, and when they reach the steps of the castle, he stops. Evie does too, a safe distance away from him. 

Harry sighs. He's had many difficult conversations with students over the years, but he's sure this will be among the most difficult. He turns to Evie, watches the flickering orange firelight from the castle on his face, and thinks about what it was like to be an eleven year old boy with too many expectations on his shoulders. "I know the other students have told you things about me, things that have made you feel afraid of me."

He looks for confirmation in Evie's eyes as he speaks. Evie squeezes his eyes shut. He looks smaller than ever, shoulders hunched, hugging himself and his snake tightly, enough so that Harry hears Poppy give a small hiss of protest. Evie's grip doesn't seem to loosen despite his clear adoration of the creature, as if he himself hadn't heard her. Harry's tempted to step in before he squeezes the poor thing too much when he hears a whisper, almost lost on the wind. "Is it true?"

Evie opens his eyes again, meets Harry's gaze with his own for just a moment, and Harry sees Voldemort's red sclera in the boy's irises. He sees the Malfoys' platinum blond hair in his white. He sees Evie Xisuma, unfairly maligned for a parentage he couldn't control and an existence he didn't ask for, the same way Severus Snape maligned him. "Am I bad? Will you... Are you gonna..."

And just like that, Harry knows why Evie was muttering the word _kill_ to Poppy, like a missing piece of the puzzle. He understands why Evie always sits in the back of his classroom, why he never meets Harry's gaze, why he rarely turns in his homework, and why he's never caught alone with him. It breaks his heart. Harry takes a hesitant step towards Evie, waits only a moment to see if the boy will allow him to get near. When he doesn't flinch away, Harry closes the distance between them and puts a gentle hand on Evie's shoulder.

"Evie," Harry says. Evie glances up at him, and his eyes are red-rimmed, watery with unshed tears. "When I was a student I had a professor that went to school with my father. My father... he wasn't always the best person. He was really quite awful in school. He... mistreated people. People like that professor. And that professor took it out on me, when it was my turn to come here and learn magic. I'd never met the man, but he'd already decided what my character was like because of who my father was. He thought he was justified mistreating me the same way he had been mistreated."

Harry kneels until he's level with Evie, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly as he does. "It's not true, Evie. You aren't Voldemort any more than I'm James Potter."

Evie sucks in a breath, the tears building in his eyes finally falling, streaking wet tracks down his cheeks. Harry squeezes his shoulder again. "I won't ever do anything to harm you, Evie. I promise." 

And just like that the tension is broken. Evie lets out a raucous cry—loud enough that Harry thinks he may have woken his housemates all the way in Gryffindor Tower up with it—and launches forward to wrap his arms around Harry's middle, grabbing handfuls of his robes desperately as his shoulders shake with more harsh sobs. Harry blinks, and when his mind catches up with Evie's actions he wraps his own arms around the boy, pulls him close, mindful of little corn snake squished between them, hissing quietly at them both. He's not sure if his remaining skills in parseltongue are nuanced enough to pick up things like tone, but he's sure that Poppy's must be an exasperated sort of fondness. 

They might have stayed like that all night, Harry's reassuring hands holding Evie, rubbing comforting circles into his back while he sobs into Harry's robes. Harry's certainly preparing for the prospect as his knees start to ache from kneeling on the hard stone steps of the castle when Evie suddenly lets out a squeak, jerking away from Harry with flailing arms. Harry grabs hold of him before he can fall, his alarm lasting only until he notices the corn snake curled around Evie's shoulders, her tongue flicking against the boy's ear. He chuckles, and with a sniffle Evie does too. 

"Poppy wants to go to bed," he says.

Harry smiles. "I think Poppy's got the right idea."

Evie nods, a yawn splitting his face as if the very idea of sleeping has made the evening's events catch up to him all at once and left him entirely drained of energy. He places a hand near his shoulder, hisses at Poppy to come down before she falls off of him. The little corn snake retorts that she is very careful, even as she slithers down into his palm, then back up into his sleeve.

Harry escorts Evie through the doors into the dim castle entrance hall, escorts him all the way to Gryffindor Tower, listening to Evie's quiet conversation with Poppy along the way. He doesn't hear the word _kill_ again. Harry stops at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Try to get some rest, Evie," he says. 

Evie yawns again, rubbing at his eyes as he does. "Okay."

Harry smiles, and resists the temptation to ruffle the boy's hair. Despite holding him tightly as he sobbed into Harry's robes less than ten minutes ago, he thinks perhaps they aren't quite there yet. "And remember what I said earlier."

Evie glances up at him shyly, biting his lip as he does. He looks doubtful again, as if Harry's words had slipped through his fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass. So he says them again, and prepares to say them as many times as Evie may need to hear it.

"Despite what everyone else may tell you Evie, the only person you are... is you."

**Author's Note:**

> Harry: Ginny I fucked up  
> Ginny, sighing: How many orphans did you adopt this time
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you're so inclined you can follow me @ sprucewoodcottage on tumblr.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Or worse, tea!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25191742) by [RemainingQuestions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemainingQuestions/pseuds/RemainingQuestions)




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